Hot Docs has revealed the recipients for the 2023 editions of a number of its granting programs, which will disperse funds totaling $257,500.

The largest sum granted comes through the Hot Docs-Slaight Family Fund, which was established in 2020 to support documentary projects that champion music while showcasing the impact of Canadian music on the global stage.

A total of $127,500 will be split between five projects, including Donna Grantis: Earth Percent from award-winning filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier (Watermark, Manufactured Landscapes), and Anti-Diva: The Carole Pope Confessions from Michelle Mama.

The Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund, meanwhile, is granting a total of $85,000 to six documentary projects. Of the selected projects, two hail from Alberta, two from Quebec, and one each from British Columbia and Ontario. Among them is Nicole Bazuin’s doc Modern Whore (pictured), produced by Clique Pictures’ Lauren Grant and Virgin Twins’ Bazuin and Andrea Werhun.

The CrossCurrents Doc Fund, which is dedicated to supporting filmmakers telling stories from underrepresented and marginalized communities, is presenting a total of $45,000 across its two strands.

The International Theatrical strand, which is presented in collaboration with the Panicaro Foundation, is contributing $30,000 that will be split between two projects: the Phillipines-U.K. coproduction Untying the Knot, from director Chona Mangalindan; and an unnamed and unattributed project from Yemen.

Finally, the Short/Experimental/Interactive strand, presented in collaboration with the R&M Lang Foundation, will contribute $15,000 to two projects, one from Spain, the other from Venezuela.

The selected projects for this year’s round of Hot Docs funding grants are listed below, with loglines courtesy of Hot Docs:

Hot Docs-Slaight Family Fund – Development Funds

Donna Grantis: Earth Percent
Directors: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier
Producers: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, Tyler Levine
Production company: Mercury Films Inc.

Donna Grantis: Earth Percent follows acclaimed guitarist Donna Grantis on her ambitious and groundbreaking Culture vs. Policy music project, which pairs her virtuosic guitar work in collaboration with samples of text and speeches by the world’s most prominent environmental activists.

Looping (w/t)
Director: Carol Nguyen
Producers: Camille Mongeau, Louis-Emmanuel Gagné-Brochu

A creative and intimate documentary that follows Québecoise singer Charlotte Cardin during the making of her third album. We witness private moments during her major career growth, dive behind the scenes in creative sessions and see the roller coasters that come with modern world imagery.

Hot Docs-Slaight Family Fund – Production Funds

Anti-Diva: The Carole Pope Confessions
Directors: Michelle Mama
Producers: Bill Taylor, Allison Grace, Michelle Mama
Production company: Gay Agenda, Fall From Grace

Queer rock legend Carole Pope rides the highs and lows of being a 77-year-old working musician.

Disco’s Revenge
Directors: Omar Majeed, Peter Mishara
Producers: Noah Segal, Christina Piovesan, Sam Sutherland, Dave Harris

For too long, disco music has been seen as a joke; a curious musical genre, now long dead. But disco never died. It lives on in the music of today and carries the legacy of radical politics and social change.

Turtle Island Rap
Director: Alexandra Lazarowich
Producers: Rodrigo Bascuñán, Jessica Ford, Alexandra Lazarowich, Anupa Mistry, Darby Wheeler
Production company: Scenario Media

Turtle Island Rap is a verité documentary that follows young Indigenous rappers over a year as they fight to make it in the music industry, strive to be free of colonialism, and challenge prejudice through their art.

Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund

Fredy
Director: Will Prosper
Producers: Yanick Létourneau, Nathalie Cloutier
Production companies: Peripheria, NFB

In 2008, innocent 18-year-old Fredy, killed by Montreal police while playing dice, triggers Canada’s biggest race riot. Fourteen years later, a film unravels systemic racism in the West, painting a poignant portrait of his family and community.

The Good Virus
Director: Rosvita Dransfeld
Producers: Vanessa Dylyn, Rosvita Dransfeld

The Good Virus is a documentary that travels deep into the heart of the hidden world of phage therapy, a revolutionary treatment for life-threatening bacterial infections. As the global medical community is out of solutions for drug-resistant superbugs, scientists are turning to bacteria’s ancient enemy: bacteriophages.

Intercepted
Director: Oksana Karpovych
Producers: Giacomo Nudi, Rocío Barba Fuentes, Pauline Tran Van Lieu, Lucie Rego, Darya Bassel, Olha Beskhmelnytsina
Production companies: Les Films Cosmos, Hutong Productions, Moonman

A journey through Ukraine to reveal the banality of evil behind the Russian invasion by creatively juxtaposing the daily lives of the invaded with the voices of the invaders.

Modern Whore (pictured)
Director: Nicole Bazuin
Producers: Lauren Grant, Nicole Bazuin, Andrea Werhun
Production companies: Clique Pictures, Virgin Twins

Modern Whore is a hybrid documentary that reimagines depictions of sex work through the lived experiences of writer, performer, and sex worker Andrea Werhun. Andrea grapples with social stigma and reclaims her narrative in this funny, heartbreaking, and surprising film.

Singhs in the Ring
Director: Akash Sherman
Producers: Shane Fennessey, Adam Scorgie, Sunny Sidhu
Production companies: Fennessey Films, Score G Production Films, FMT Productions

Singhs in the Ring is a feature documentary based on the wildly colorful, outrageously animated, pile-driving phenomenon of the Singh wrestling dynasty, stretching from the infectiously fun 1970s era of Gama Singh to the present day with his son, Raj.

Tea Creek
Director: Ryan Dickie
Producer: Ben Cox
Production company: Boreal Wolf Film Productions

Against the backdrop of colonization and the climate crisis, passionate Indigenous entrepreneur Jacob Beaton sets out to turn his family farm into a centre for food sovereignty, resilience, and healing for his remote Northern community and beyond.

CrossCurrents International Doc Fund – International Theatrical Strand

Untying the Knot (Philippines/UK)
Director: Chona Mangalindan
Producers: Ramzy Haddad, Chona Mangalindan
Production company: Amaya Films

In the Philippines, the last country outside the Vatican where divorce is illegal, women in trouble and abusive marriages risk their lives for freedom.

Withheld (Yemen)
Director: Withheld
Producer: Withheld
Production company: Withheld

CrossCurrents International Doc Fund – Short/Experimental/Interactive Strand

Everything I Am Not (Spain)
Director: Laura Dauden
Producer: Laura Dauden, Miguel Angel Herrera
Production company: Forward Films

After facing false accusations of terrorism, enduring imprisonment, and escaping into exile, a Colombian lawyer and activist delves into her memoirs to expose the corruption and brutality of her nation’s judicial system.

The Last Shaman (Venezuela)
Director: Susy Peña
Producer: Patricia Mata
Production company: Gato Negro Media

When Rufino, the shaman of a remote Indigenous community in Venezuela, leads his people on a pilgrimage into the deep jungle, they must confront the encroachment of modernity, the pressures of Christianization, and the devastating allure of illegal mining.

This story originally appeared in Realscreen